In motor vehicles, even when the vehicle door is fully closed, it is typical for an open space or void, also referred to as a seal gap, to be present between the vehicle door and the vehicle door body opening. This seal gap is necessary to provide sufficient clearance around the vehicle door to permit the door to be freely opened and closed without interfering with or contacting the vehicle body structure about the vehicle door opening. In a motor vehicle it is highly desirable to closeout this perimeter door gap or seal gap to prevent elements present on the exterior of the vehicle, such as rain, water, dust and debris from entering the interior of the vehicle through the seal gap. Additionally, road noise and wind noise present on the exterior of the vehicle is attenuated before reaching the vehicle interior by providing an environmental seal to closeout the seal gap. To achieve this environmental closure, one or more resilient weather strips are typically employed to surround the seal gap between the periphery of the vehicle door and vehicle body to close out the seal gap. Each peripheral weather strip or resilient seal may also be referred to herein as a seal member. The resiliency of the seal member enables the seal member to maintain environmental closure of the seal gap by dynamically adjusting for dimensional changes in the seal gap as the vehicle body and door flex and move during normal vehicle operation.
It is typical to provide at least one environmental seal in the seal gap around a vehicle door. In certain vehicles, two more seal members may be present in tandem to closeout a seal gap. The additional seal is particularly useful in providing an additional sealing layer between the vehicle door and vehicle door opening to reduce the sound pressure level of noise entering the interior of the vehicle from the vehicle exterior, such as road noise and wind noise.
The presence of a resilient seal in the seal gap such as a weather strip is known to increase the force required to close the vehicle door, due at least partially to the force required to compress the resilient seal in the seal gap as the vehicle door closes.